Understanding ISO on blog

Understanding ISO

When you see the letters ISO what do you think of? Do you think of the International Organization for Standardization? Or do you think of the photography term? If you are here we are going to assume when you see ISO you are thinking of the photography term.

But what is ISO. What does it do? Should you even know what it does or just leave it be?

Well you DO need to know and understand ISO, when it comes to photography. After all, it is one of the sides of the exposure triangle. This guide will help you understand ISO in photography. When you should use it and when you should leave it alone. Let’s jump in and get started:

What is ISO

As you might know I love the acronym KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Keeping that in mind, ISO is a camera setting that lightens or darkens a photo. The higher your ISO number is, the brighter your photo will get. That is with a trade off we will discuss in below.

All manual cameras have an adjustable ISO setting and most cellphones do too (if you use Pro mode).

The ISO values usually start at 100. Although on some cameras you can find it as low as 50. Typically, the ISO values go up to ISO 6400 or even higher. Below you will see the common values for ISO.

· ISO 100

· ISO 200

· ISO 400

· ISO 800

· ISO 1600

· ISO 3200

· ISO 6400

· ISO 12800

One thing to know is every time you increase your ISO you double the brightness on your photo. Just every time you up your ISO you introduce more noise/grain.

PROs and CONs of using ISO

There are many PROs and CONs when it comes to using ISO. While adjusting your ISO will make your photos brighter. It can come at a cost of added noise within your photos. But when should you use a higher ISO compared to using the lowest possible ISO.

It all depends on what you are trying to photograph. You won’t want to use a high ISO when shooting a landscape. However, if you are shooting a person outside in low light you’d want to bump the ISO up. You might even want to use a higher ISO when shooting animals outdoors.

When shooting a landscape you want the image to be as sharp as possible. You don’t want to deal with any noise that you could possibly get when using a higher ISO. That’s why you would increase the shutter speed instead. Having a longer shutter speed rather than a higher ISO is ideal when photographing most landscapes.

When shooting a person in low light you don’t want to increase the shutter speed. If you did, your subject could move and the image would become blurry. That’s why you would increase the ISO. It may produce a little grain or noise but that’s better than a blurry image. Read More…

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